John Sleezer/Kansas City Star/MCTMariano Rivera returns to the team's clubhouse after talking with members of the media before a game against the Kansas City Royals. Rivera injured his knee prior to Thursday's game and says he is planning on returning.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Mariano Rivera broke from a quiet conversation with Derek Jeter and hoisted himself from a clubhouse chair into a standing position, propped up by crutches.

His right leg was stiff from the wrap around his knee and he hobbled across the room toward his locker. A vase of multicolored flowers sat in the empty stall next to him.

And while it looked like he was attending his own somber baseball funeral, Rivera had only good news to share. After a sleepless night in his hotel room Thursday following an outfield stumble that caused a torn anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in his knee — and placed his professional career in jeopardy — he smiled wide.
“I’m coming back,” he said. “Write it down in big letters.”

Rivera will return to New York Saturday, and from brief conversations with physician David Altchek believes the rehabilitation process will last somewhere between three and five months. He would not rule out pitching this season but said if everything goes according to plan, he would be completely ready by spring training 2013. He plans to meet with the doctor on Monday.

This coming from the man who in spring training hinted to reporters that 2012 might be his final season. But Rivera said he never made up his mind completely. And the thought of retiring weighed on him last night as he talked to his teammates and his wife, Clara.

“This had me thinking ‘I can’t go out like this,’ ” Rivera said. “Last night I had a lot of time to think, a lot of time to think.”

He planned to sit his teammates down together and tell them, though several anticipated his reaction.

General manager Brian Cashman said a 43-year-old Rivera would be welcomed back, no questions asked, next season. Cashman added: “If Mariano Rivera is healthy, we know what he’s capable of doing.”

Derek Jeter, who told reporters Thursday he knew Rivera would pitch again this season, said simply: “I told you that yesterday,” though he admitted he was working off a gut feeling.

Alex Rodriguez had lunch with Rivera today and insisted that, no matter what, the closer will continue to be a presence in the locker room.

“Surprising,” Rodriguez said of Rivera’s decision. “Very. I thought it was over for sure. So, super, super, super news. From a selfish standpoint, I love the man and it’s great for the Yankee organization and for all the fans.”

Manager Joe Girardi, like Jeter, didn’t need to hear it from the closer’s mouth.

“I just kind of had a feeling, in talking to him last night, that this wasn’t the way he wanted to go out,” he said. “Mo’s a guy that wants to do things on his own terms.”

But most importantly, Rivera will be around to do it. When he struggled to close his eyes last night, he said the hardest part was thinking about everyone he was letting down. Though teammates had brushed it off, an example of his consistent humility, Rivera struggled.

That is, until he knew that today was not a day to say goodbye. That his life in baseball would live another day.

“I can handle this, I can handle this. If God gave it to me? I can handle this,” he said. “I’ll deal with it. That’s what adversity is, you deal with it.”